Lancaster's Choice

CHAPTER XXXI

Lord Lancaster received a message from his aunt that evening. She wished to see him privately for ten minutes.

"I hope she isn't going to tease me about Lady Adela again," he said to himself, and he looked rather sullen when he went to her. He was exceedingly impatient of the rule she tried to exercise over him.

"Clive, why didn't you tell me about that girl?" she began, dashing into the subject without preamble.

He was honestly bewildered by the suddenness of the inquiry. He did not think of connecting Leonora West with it.

"I do not know what you are talking about, Aunt Lydia," he answered.

She gave him a keen glance to see if he was trying to deceive her; but his fair, handsome face expressed only the most honest surprise. "I mean that West girl—the housekeeper's niece," she said. "Why didn't you tell me about her when you came home?"

He reflected a moment, and then answered:

"I did, Aunt Lydia. You asked me if I had brought Leonora West to the housekeeper, and I told you that I had done so. Then you asked me if she were troublesome, and I told you that she was. Do you not remember?"

"Yes; but you should have told me more about her. It is very strange that you kept it all to yourself," she said, regarding him suspiciously, and nowise pleased when she saw the deep flush that reddened his face.

"What was it you wished me to tell you?" he inquired, coldly.

"Why, that she was grown up instead of a child, as I thought, and—and—that she was pretty—rather—and accomplished beyond her station," wrathfully said Lady Lancaster.

"I supposed you would find that out for yourself in due time," he replied with a half smile that nettled her, for she was decidedly uneasy over the discovery she had made. She was by no means blind to the distracting beauty of Leonora, and it had not taken her five minutes to find out that her mind was cultured and her accomplishments of a high order. When she reflected that her nephew had crossed the ocean in this dangerous society, she was frightened for her plans concerning him. What if they should "gang aglee?"

"Did you have any selfish motives in keeping the fact to yourself so long?" she inquired, sneeringly.

"I do not understand you," he replied, coldly.

"You do not? Yet you must have known that I would be surprised. You knew I expected a child. You must have supposed that I would not care to have such a girl—an adventuress, perhaps—or, may be, a low concert or saloon singer—who can tell?—here at Lancaster Park."

The angry flash of his eyes did not escape her keen gaze. She had spoken with a deliberate purpose.

"Lady Lancaster, I do not think any one but yourself would dare say such things of Miss West," he said, hotly.

"Dare? Why not? What do you know to the contrary?" sneered the evil old woman.

"I know Miss West herself; no one who knows her would believe her to be an adventuress. She is a pure, simple, and true-hearted maiden," he answered, steadily.

"Ah! so you are interested in her? I thought as much," declared Lady Lancaster, violently. "This, then, is the secret of your indifference to Lady Adela. You have conceived a preference for this low-born, impertinent girl. But beware, sir, how you trifle with me. Remember my conditions."

Flushing to the roots of his hair, Lancaster neither affirmed nor denied her accusations. He sat gazing at her in proud silence.

"Answer me one thing," she stormed. "Do you intend to marry Lady Adela?"

"I have not made up my mind yet," he answered, coldly.

"Do you ever expect to do so?" she sneered. "You have been acquainted with Lady Adela long enough, I think, to tell whether you are pleased with her or not."

"It is scarcely a week," he said.

"Do you want more time?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"How much?" she inquired.

"The utmost limit your liberality will allow me."

Lady Lancaster reflected for a moment, with her head on one side, like some brooding bird of evil omen.

"Very well," she said. "You shall not say I was impatient with you. Lady Adela will stay with us a month yet. You shall have the whole of that time to make up your mind, and then you must give me your answer. I can not believe that you are fool enough to let it be an unfavorable one."

"Thank you," he replied, with a bow.

"You need not thank me for nothing," sharply. "Of course I know you will have more sense than to refuse twenty thousand a year, unless," sneering, "you mean to become a suitor for the hand of that West creature."

Stung to retaliation, he answered:

"Miss West can boast a suitor more eligible than myself in point of that 'filthy lucre' you hold so dear."

She started, and gave him a keen glance.

"Whom?"

"Lieutenant De Vere."

"No!" she cried.

"Yes," he answered. "Why should you look so surprised? He was our compagnon du voyage. He admired Miss West very much, and he confided to me his intention of winning her, if possible, for his wife."

"His family will not allow him to throw himself away on that girl," she cried.

"He is quite independent of his family, and he will not be slow to avail himself of the advantage."

"Happy mortal! You would like to exchange places with him, no doubt?" she sneered.

"I could wish, certainly, that I were as fortunate as my friend," he replied.

She glared at him a moment, and then asked, curiously:

"Is the girl in love with De Vere? Pshaw! what would love have to do with it? I mean, will she accept her wealthy suitor?"

"She will if she is worldly wise," slowly. "But I can not tell. I do not know Miss West well enough to decide what she would do in a given case."

"Of course she will accept him. She is sharp enough, and such a girl as she is—poor and lowly born—would not be slow to jump at such a chance," said the dowager, coarsely. "If I had known that Lieutenant De Vere was so silly, I should not have invited him here. I would have had nothing to do with him. But he will be here to-night."

"He is here now. He went to his dressing-room an hour ago," Lancaster said, coolly. "I think he will express a desire for a private interview with you this evening. It is rather embarrassing to him to have to ask your permission to woo his lady-love in the housekeeper's rooms, yet such is his avowed intention. If I—" he paused and bit his lip to keep back the impatient avowal.

"If you—what? Go on, my lord—let me hear what wonderful thought was prefaced by that 'if.'"

"Only this—if I were master in my own house instead of a guest, it should be otherwise. My friend should not be insulted."

"You would bring that creature into the drawing-room to receive his addresses?" she hissed.

"Yes," he replied.

"Then you will not do so while I am the mistress of Lancaster. If he chooses to have such low tastes, it is not for me to indulge him in them. If he must woo the housekeeper's niece, he may woo her in her proper place," cried Lady Lancaster, indignant at his defense of his friend's misplaced admiration, and secretly jealous of the beautiful girl's influence.

What if Lancaster, too, had been bewitched by that fair, piquant face and luring smile?

A sudden thought came to her.

After all, perhaps, it were best for her plans that De Vere should have his way. Who could tell what folly might get into Lancaster's head?

She looked at him thoughtfully.

"Perhaps I was hasty," she said. "But I had a shock to-day when I first saw the girl, and—she was very impertinent to me. Is it your wish, Clive, that I should put no obstacle in the way of Lieutenant De Vere's designs?"

He bowed silently. A swift, sharp, cruel pang of jealousy tore through his heart as he did so. "To see her another's—Oh, God! it would be harder than death!" he said to himself, and yet there was no hope for him. Why should he stand in another's light?

Her keen eyes detected the shadow on his face, and she interpreted it aright. She was frightened at the danger that had been so near her, unknown and unsuspected all this while.

"I must remove the temptation from him as soon as I can," she thought, anxiously.

CHAPTER XXXII

"Lord Lancaster, I want to ask you something," said Lady Adela Eastwood.

It was in the evening after the gentlemen had come in from their walnuts and wine. Lord Lancaster had retired rather sulkily to a corner, and the earl's daughter had followed him and sat down near him.

She looked very handsome in her dinner-dress of rose-pink satin draped with creamy lace. Her brilliant black eyes searched his face eagerly, as she said:

"Lady Lancaster has been telling us the strangest story before the gentlemen came in. I am going to ask you if it is true."

He tried to rouse himself to interest in her theme.

"Yes," he said, "I know that Lady Lancaster can be very interesting," sarcastically. "What is it all about, Lady Adela?"

She lowered her voice, and glanced across the room where Lieutenant De Vere sat with rather a bored look on his face, trying to become interested in the lively chatter of the pretty Miss Dean.

"It is about that handsome Lieutenant De Vere," she said; "Lady Lancaster has been telling us that he is infatuated with a ridiculous creature—a servant, I think she said, or something like that. And he is going to propose to her, and it will most likely be a match. Now, you are his friend, Lord Lancaster. Please tell me if it is really so?"

"No, it is not," he replied, pulling savagely at the innocent ends of his long mustache.

"Then it is not true? Lady Lancaster was only telling it to tease Emma Dean, I fancy. Emma has been setting her cap at the lieutenant, you know. She will be very glad to hear it was all a joke."

"But it was not a joke, really," he said, embarrassed. "You know what Tennyson says about a 'lie that is half a truth,' Lady Adela. Well, that is how the case stands. Lady Lancaster has simply misrepresented the facts. There was a grain of truth in her bushel of falsehood."

"Oh, dear!" cried Lady Adela, in dismay. She nestled a little nearer him on the fauteuil where they were sitting. "Do tell me the right of it, Lord Lancaster; I am all curiosity."

"Then I will tell you the right of it, if you care to hear," he replied; and there was so stern a look on his face that the earl's daughter was frightened. She wondered if he was angry with her.

"I hope you are not offended with me for repeating what Lady Lancaster said," she observed sweetly, giving him a demure look out of her large black eyes.

He looked at her gravely a minute without replying. She was very handsome, certainly—a brilliant brunette, very vivacious when it pleased her to be so, and again with a languor and indolence amounting to laziness. She had been in society several seasons, and owned to twenty-three years old. She was beautiful, graceful, and dignified, and Lancaster felt that she would make a fitting mistress for Lancaster Park; but his pulse did not beat any faster at her bright glance, nor at her sweet, half-confidential tones.

But he looked back at her reassuringly as he replied:

"I am sorry I looked so black as to inspire you with such an idea, Lady Adela. Of course I am not offended with you. You are not answerable for Lady Lancaster's peccadilloes. I think, however, that she might have shown more respect to Lieutenant De Vere than to indulge herself in such gossip, more than half of it being false."

"Oh, then he isn't going to commit such a folly after all?" she exclaimed, relieved that it was not so, for her patrician pride had been somewhat hurt at the idea of one of her own order descending to a plebeian.

"You jump so quickly from one conclusion to another, Lady Adela, that you will not give me time to explain," he said, smiling.

"Oh!" she cried, abashed. "Then I shall not say another word, only listen to your story."

"There is no story—only an explanation," he said. "I should not speak of it, only I think De Vere would thank me for setting him right. Yes, he is in love, Lady Adela, but not with a servant girl, as my aunt insinuated. The young lady who has won his heart is a fair, refined young girl, cultured and accomplished, and of respectable although not noble birth. She is an American girl who came over with De Vere and myself from New York to her aunt, who is the housekeeper here. That is the long and the short of the servant-girl story."

"You know her?" cried Lady Adela, amazed. "Oh, how I would like to see this fascinating girl, admired both by Lieutenant De Vere and Lord Lancaster!"

"You have seen her," he replied, with that quick flush that showed so clearly through his fine skin.

"Where?" she cried, amazed.

"You remember the young lady we saw sketching among the ruins yesterday?"

"Yes," she replied.

"It was Miss West—De Vere's inamorata," he answered.

Lady Adela did not speak for a moment. She was surprised into silence. When she recovered her speech, she said, faintly:

"You said she was staying in the neighborhood for the sketching."

"That was a small fib, Lady Adela, for which I humbly crave your pardon. The truth is that Miss West's father, lately dead, has left his daughter to Mrs. West's care. She is staying at Lancaster because she has no other home."

"Ah! Then she is the housekeeper's niece. I presume that is the reason Lady Lancaster called her a servant," said the earl's daughter, in a tone that quite excused the dowager.

He gave her a quick look which, not being an adept in reading expressions, Lady Adela did not understand.

"No, she is not Mrs. West's niece. Her father's brother was Mrs. West's husband. There is all the relationship there is," he said, almost curtly.

Lady Adela gave him a glance that was rather haughty, yet half jealous.

"I can see that Lieutenant De Vere has a zealous champion in you," she said, with a tincture of bitterness in her voice.

"I do not think he needs or desires a champion," he answered.

"No? And why not?" she asked. "Surely he must be aware that he will be censured by many for his course in marrying below his own station in life. He will need some one to make excuses for him."

"His wife, if he wins her, will be an all-sufficient excuse for him," Lancaster said, calmly.

"Why?" she asked, rather piqued at his words.

"Because Miss West is quite fascinating enough to make any man excusable for his folly, if folly it be," he replied.

"You are very complimentary to her," Lady Adela said, with her head held high. "I can not see how she could be so fascinating. I did not think she was so very pretty, really. She had quite common brown hair, and gray eyes, I think, and one of those baby faces that some people admire, but which I never did."

"It is not at all a baby face," he said. "She has a great deal of character and decision in it, I think."

"Indeed? But, of course, you have had a better chance of studying her face than I have, and may be a better judge. I think you are more than half-way in love with the housekeeper's niece yourself," Lady Adela exclaimed, flashing a reproachful glance upon him, for, being well aware of Lady Lancaster's scheme, she felt that he belonged to her.

"De Vere would not like that much," he said, carelessly, without betraying his inward vexation.

She fanned herself rapidly with her pink satin fan for a moment, then said, with a keen glance at him:

"Lady Lancaster has formed a fine plan for showing him his folly and breaking off the affair."

"Really?" he inquired, sarcastically.

"Yes; she is quite sure that if he could once see this girl in the company of real ladies, he would see the difference and become disenchanted."

"Yes?"

"It seems as if the girl can play quite well," said Lady Adela, going on in her low, confidential tones. "And the ladies are all curious to see her. So Lady Lancaster is going to have her in to play for us, just for a pretext, you know; and then Lieutenant De Vere can not help seeing the difference between her and the women of his own set. Perhaps it will cure him of his fancy."

"Perhaps," said Lancaster, dryly; but his heart began to beat. Would Lady Lancaster really bring Leonora into the drawing-room? Something assured him that if she did it would only be to humiliate and snub her. He read this intuitively in Lady Adela's supercilious expression. His heart swelled with hot resentment. He rose hurriedly.

"She shall not send for her," he said; but the earl's daughter answered, with ill-concealed malice:

"She has already done so."

"Then she shall not come. I will myself forbid it," he exclaimed; but even as the words left his lips, he paused and stood for a moment speechless. The drawing-room door had opened just then, and Leonora West stood just inside of it, hesitating on the threshold.

CHAPTER XXXIII

"Oh, Lord Lancaster, you are too late! She is come now!" cried Lady Adela, for her glance, too, had fallen on the graceful, hesitating figure. She saw with inexpressible chagrin that Leonora was in simple but faultless costume. Her dress, of some soft, shining, thin, black material, was of stylish and fashionable make, and her white shoulders and arms gleamed marble-white through the thin folds. She had arranged all her rich tresses of chestnut hair in loose puffs and waves on the top of her head, and fastened a single spray of starry white jasmine flowers at the side. Some of the same sweet, fragrant blossoms fastened the full ruff of white crêpe lisse at the round, white throat, and constituted her only adorning. Her white arms and dimpled wrist, left bare by the elbow-sleeves of her dress, were more beautiful in their shapely grace than Lady Adela's ten-button gloves and diamond bracelets.

"She has had the impertinence to get herself up in full evening dress, the minx!" the earl's daughter muttered, almost audibly; and then she uttered a suppressed exclamation of annoyance, for Lord Lancaster had started for her side, and was making his way rapidly across the room to the door.

"He has left me for her!" was her jealous, angry thought, and a sudden hatred for Leonora entered her heart.

Meanwhile, Lord Lancaster had reached the spot where the girl was standing, with a slightly heightened color on her face, but with that quiet air of self-possession she habitually wore. She was not at all overwhelmed by the honor Lady Lancaster had thrust upon her, but she was a little indignant at the dowager, who purposely left her standing there alone, taking care that De Vere did not see her and go to her rescue.